Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (23 June [O.S. 11 June] 1889 – 5 March 1966), better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova (/ɑːkˈmɑːtɔːvə/; Russian: Анна Ахматова, IPA: [ɐxˈmatəvə]), was one of the most significant Russian poets of the 20th century. She was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965 and received second-most (three) nominations for the award the following year.
‘A grey cloud in the sky overhead,’
‘Ah! You thought I’m the kind too,’
‘All I see is hilly Pavlovsk,’
‘Always so many pleas from a lover!’
‘As a silver, delicate strand’
‘A string of little beads at my neck,’
‘Because somewhere there’s simplicity and light,’
‘Don’t taunt your heart with earthly joys,’
‘Drink my soul, as if with a straw’
‘Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,’
‘Hands clasped under the dark veil.’
‘He loved three things, alive:’
‘Here we’re all drunkards and whores,’
‘How can you bear to view the Neva,’
‘How I loved, and love, to look’
‘I don’t know if you’re alive or dead -‘
‘I hear the oriole’s ever-mournful voice,’
‘I’ll be there and weariness will vanish.’
‘I’ll erase this day from your memory,’
Imitation of Innokenty Annensky
‘I’m not one of those who left their land’
‘I pray to the ray from the window-pane’
‘Is this century worse than those before?’
I Taught Myself To Live Simply
‘It’s fine here: the rustle and crackle;’
‘It was not mystery or grief,’
‘I was not born too early or too late,’
Legend on An Unfinished Portrait
‘Let the organ peal out once more,’
‘Like a white stone in a well’s depths,’
‘Like one betrothed I receive’
‘Memory of sun ebbs from the heart.’
‘My heart beats smoothly, steadily,’
‘My voice is weak, but not my will’
‘No one sung about that meeting,’
‘Now no one will listen to my songs.’
‘The bridge of logs is black and twisted,’
‘The evening light is broad and yellow,’
‘There’s a secret border in human closeness,’
The road by the seaside garden darkens,
‘The sky’s blue lacquer grows dim,’
‘To feel thoroughly ill, to sweat in delirium,’
‘To lose the freshness of speech, the simplicity of feeling,’
‘We shall not sip from the same glass,’
‘Why do you wander, restless?’